Chapter Summaries

Wen Li warned Fu Qian that the Gullard Group was investigating him, and police officers soon arrived to take him in for disturbing the public order. Fu Qian used Yuan Shan’s card to stop them and requisitioned their vehicle, leaving the officers waiting at the bookstore.

• Wen Li told Fu Qian that the Gullard Group was secretly investigating him and said she had come to warn him.
• Fu Qian reassured Wen Li about his pale appearance and learned that the Gullard Group was a powerful organization in Shangjing.
• Three Shangjing police officers arrived and told Fu Qian they suspected him of disturbing the public order.
• Fu Qian stopped Wen Li from speaking and handed the officers Yuan Shan’s card, prompting their leader to make a phone call.
• The lead officer returned the card and told his two subordinates to stay at the bookstore, and Fu Qian requisitioned their vehicle.

Fu Qian and Wen Li drove away from the bookstore in a requisitioned police car while discussing the Gullard Group. Huang Zhixun, the Blood Lion of the Xiyuan Huang Clan, attacked their car, and Fu Qian confronted him by accusing him of endangering public safety.

• Fu Qian took the police car keys and had Wen Li drive them away from the bookstore.
• Wen Li told Fu Qian that the Gullard Group had a powerful vampire-like bloodline and a demigod backing it.
• Fu Qian warned Wen Li to brake as Huang Zhixun dropped from the sky and slammed a hand onto the car, stopping it and shattering its windows.
• Wen Li recognized Huang Zhixun as the Blood Lion, a peak Fourth Order expert and possible future demigod.
• Fu Qian got out of the car, confirmed Huang Zhixun's identity, and told him he was suspected of endangering public safety.

Fu Qian confronted Huang Zhixun, the Blood Lion, after he attacked them in Shangjing, and easily gained the upper hand despite holding back. The fight continued until officials evacuated nearby bystanders and called for both men to stop.

• Wen Li told Fu Qian that Huang Zhixun was close to the Gullard Family, and Fu Qian suspected he had been behind the earlier attack.
• Huang Zhixun accused Fu Qian of causing trouble at the hospital and city hall, then powered up and charged at him.
• Fu Qian struck Huang Zhixun with an Air Bullet, breaking through his defense, then kept him off balance with a Thorn Whip and more Air Bullets.
• Huang Zhixun struggled to escape and wondered who Fu Qian was, unaware that Fu Qian was holding back.
• Officials evacuated the nearby crowd, and someone rushed over to order Fu Qian and Huang Zhixun to stop.

Fu Qian and Huang Zhixun were taken to the Night Watchers' base after their fight, where Huang Zhixun explained that he had targeted Fu Qian over his hospital visit. Yuan Shan then asked Fu Qian to explain why he had been at the hospital.

• Xu Liuyun broke up Fu Qian and Huang Zhixun's fight and took them to the Night Watchers' base with Wen Li.
• Yuan Shan questioned Fu Qian and Huang Zhixun about what had happened, and Fu Qian let Huang Zhixun speak first.
• Huang Zhixun revealed that the Gullard Group had asked him to act against Gan Zuoxun and that he chose Fu Qian as a target because of his Night Watchers connection.
• Huang Zhixun claimed he had stopped Fu Qian's car to investigate his suspicious appearance at the hospital.
• Yuan Shan asked Fu Qian why he had gone to the hospital.

Fu Qian claimed that the Gullard Family had hired him to watch Gan Zuoxun, prompting Yuan Shan to launch an investigation. She then held Huang Zhixun responsible for his reckless attack and ordered him not to return to Shangjing without her permission.

• Fu Qian admitted that he had watched Gan Zuoxun at the Gullard Family's request, and Huang Zhixun failed to explain how he knew the claim was false.
• Yuan Shan announced that she would investigate the Gullard Family's alleged involvement and ensure no one was wronged.
• Huang Zhixun brought up Fu Qian's past work with Yuan Shan, but she clarified that his temporary employment had ended and promised no favoritism.
• Yuan Shan confronted Huang Zhixun over attacking Fu Qian in front of civilians and disrupting public order.
• Yuan Shan told Huang Zhixun not to appear in Shangjing again unless he first applied to her, and he reluctantly agreed.

After Fu Qian helped Yuan Shan expose Huang Zhixun’s scheme, the Night Watchers located the place from Fu Qian’s star map: the dangerous Sea of Ashes. Fu Qian set out to investigate it and possibly learn about a mysterious senior, while Wen Li offered to sing for him as he recovered.

• Huang Zhixun left after realizing his plan had failed, and Yuan Shan praised Fu Qian for his actions.
• Yuan Shan told Fu Qian that the Night Watchers had found leads on the location he sought and said she would investigate the Gullard Group.
• A Night Watchers staff member matched Fu Qian’s star map to a photograph of a location deep in the Sea of Ashes.
• Yuan Shan warned Fu Qian that the Sea of Ashes was extremely dangerous and said a demigod had died there, but Fu Qian requested records about the area and the deceased senior.
• Fu Qian left the Night Watchers’ base with the records, and Wen Li offered to sing for him while he recovered from his colorless state.

Fu Qian entered the containment scene for the Servant's Needle, where he had to reach work by 9:30 as an ordinary office worker in the eerie Bee Monkey City. He made it into the elevator with a head-carrying coworker, whose head returned to her neck just as they arrived.

• Fu Qian learned that his assignment was to recontain the Servant's Needle, a Tier 1 item, and entered its containment scene with his abilities restricted.
• Fu Qian woke in Bee Monkey City, found his employee ID, and set off for the nearby workplace with only minutes to spare.
• Fu Qian reached the office building, passed security, and entered an old, rust-covered elevator with a coworker holding her detached head.
• Fu Qian greeted the coworker and apologized for stepping on her long hair, then complimented her hairstyle.
• The elevator arrived, and the coworker placed her head back on her neck before the doors opened.

Fu Qian arrived at the office just before nine thirty and received a mission to stay at work until the police arrived. After learning about a misdirected shipment and Sato’s search for a scapegoat, Fu Qian confronted Sato, whose strange expression vanished when he became angry.

• Fu Qian entered the office with a female coworker whose neck bore a bloody mark, and the coworkers acted as if nothing was unusual.
• Fu Qian’s mission updated, and when his countdown ended, thunder and torrential rain began outside.
• A middle-aged coworker warned Fu Qian that Sato was looking for someone to blame for a shipment sent out by mistake.
• Sato summoned Fu Qian and demanded his overdue statistical report, while Fu Qian said he would not take the blame for Sato’s mistake.
• Sato erupted in anger and slammed his hand on the desk, and Fu Qian noticed that Sato’s strange expression had disappeared.

Fu Qian realized the office’s abnormal employees had to be kept unaware of their conditions, then tried to avoid attracting more attention while waiting for the police. When a bloodstained policewoman entered the office, she suddenly handcuffed him.

• Fu Qian inferred that Sato, the middle-aged man, and the Headless Woman were all abnormal and that confusing them could make them realize their conditions.
• Sato dismissed Fu Qian, who returned to his workstation and kept his interactions with colleagues to a minimum.
• The middle-aged man praised Fu Qian for standing up to Sato and reminisced about how family responsibilities had changed him.
• Fu Qian noticed that the office computers were off and the phone line had been cut, then decided to head toward the bathroom.
• A bloodstained policewoman arrived and asked whether the office was where the call came from; after Fu Qian confirmed it, she entered and handcuffed him.

Fu Qian let Kelly arrest him in the office, where his coworkers acted strangely relieved to see him taken away. In the police car, Kelly explained that the city was suffering from a mind-altering virus and drove him toward safety.

• Fu Qian allowed Kelly to handcuff him after the office workers stared at him with hostile expressions.
• Kelly took Fu Qian to her police car, then gave him a key and told him to unlock the cuffs.
• Kelly introduced herself and explained that a mysterious virus had spread through Bee Monkey City, distorting infected people's minds and granting them bizarre powers.
• Kelly said Fu Qian's coworkers had reported him as infected before he entered the building, and she had cuffed him to keep them from suspecting her.
• Kelly drove Fu Qian away from the building to take him somewhere safe.

Fu Qian and Kelly drove through the torrential rain toward a safe area until a mysterious barefoot woman stopped them and climbed into their damaged car. When the woman revealed a second face in her hair and asked about her missing husband, Fu Qian persuaded her to wait in the car, leaving the three of them trapped together.

• Kelly told Fu Qian she was taking him to a safe area, and he noticed a bandaged wound on her arm.
• A figure with an umbrella appeared in the road, causing Kelly to swerve and crash the car into a roadside pillar.
• The barefoot woman asked Kelly to help her find her husband, then climbed into the car when it would not start.
• Fu Qian saw a middle-aged man's face among the woman's hair and pretended the man was nearby so the woman would wait in the car.

Fu Qian and Kelly Randa left the distressed woman behind and approached a hospital, where an old patient carrying writhing organs attacked them. Kelly was killed as the hospital and surrounding area began to decay, and Fu Qian found an employee badge bearing her name.

• Fu Qian and Kelly Randa walked away from the police lights with an umbrella after helping a distressed woman.
• Fu Qian heard a strange noise near a hospital and urged Kelly to leave, but a patient smashed through the outpatient building’s glass carrying a bundle and crying like a baby.
• Kelly Randa fired at the patient despite Fu Qian warning that the bundle was not a baby, then rushed toward it.
• The patient’s intestines wrapped around Kelly’s neck, and the patient and Kelly dissolved into red liquid that spread ruin across the area.
• Fu Qian searched the remains and found an employee badge identifying the policewoman as Kelly Randa.

Fu Qian searched the ruined hospital for his medical records after the mission prompted him to confirm his condition. He found his psychiatric file, but stopped before opening it when he recognized the smell of coffee inside the abandoned building.

• Fu Qian suspected Kelly’s identity and the hospital’s safe zone were products of delusion, and considered how the old man’s fear might have triggered his transformation.
• A new mission prompted Fu Qian to confirm his condition, so he used the hospital’s floor plan to locate the medical records room.
• Fu Qian entered the ruined outpatient building through the breach and crossed into the administration building.
• Fu Qian found his name in the psychiatric records and reached for the file, then paused after recognizing the smell of coffee.

Fu Qian followed the smell of coffee through the ruins and found Bernard, an acquaintance from Bailuoke, running a makeshift bookstore. After Bernard offered no answers, Fu Qian read his medical records and found they described severe delusions, leaving him unsure whether the events around him were real.

• Fu Qian stopped dismantling his medical records and followed the coffee scent upstairs to a glass-partitioned bookstore.
• Fu Qian found Bernard slumped behind the counter and learned that Bernard had arrived before him and made coffee using a generator.
• Bernard laughed at Fu Qian's attempt to understand his condition and offered no useful advice.
• Fu Qian returned downstairs and read damaged records describing sleep problems, worsening symptoms, severe delusions, and improvement after psychological intervention.

Fu Qian woke in an interrogation room after leaving the collapsing hospital and learned that Bee Monkey City had been destroyed by a virus outbreak he was accused of causing. Kelly Randa questioned him about the disaster, and his mission updated to finding the Servant's Needle to transcend the nightmare.

• Fu Qian found himself in an interrogation room with Kelly Randa and Officer Brook after the hospital vanished.
• Kelly told Fu Qian that Bee Monkey City had been destroyed and that rescuers found him after the disaster.
• Kelly explained that Fu Qian's medical records suggested he had known about the disaster in advance, and that hearing a baby cry helped him enter a calmer, more lucid state.
• Kelly accused Fu Qian of spreading the virus, while Fu Qian said he remembered nothing and asked why the Night Watch had not been sent.
• Fu Qian learned that investigators had found no traces of supernatural forces in the disaster or in him.
• Fu Qian saw his mission update to finding the Servant's Needle to transcend the nightmare.

Fu Qian followed Dr. Kelly’s instructions to re-enter the nightmare and woke in his apartment, where he reasoned that the city was a dreamlike recreation of the disaster. After spotting someone watching him from across the street, he went to investigate and found the Headless Woman.

• Dr. Kelly questioned Fu Qian about the disaster, and Fu Qian asked where he had been found; Brook said it was outside the city museum.
• Dr. Kelly told Fu Qian to close his eyes and sink into the crying, and he followed her instructions.
• Fu Qian woke in his apartment, ate breakfast, and concluded that Bee Monkey City was a nightmare recreation of the virus-stricken real city.
• Fu Qian spotted a figure watching him from a nearby window, memorized its location, and went to the building across the street.
• Fu Qian waited outside the target apartment until the Headless Woman stepped out and asked if they could go together.

Fu Qian tested Shen Yuan’s worsening condition, then invented a spreading-virus crisis to calm her and took her along to the museum. He arrived at the place where Kelly and the others had found him and went inside to investigate.

• Fu Qian noticed Shen Yuan’s hair falling out and concluded that her condition was deteriorating.
• Fu Qian told Shen Yuan a virus was spreading through the city and claimed the museum might hold important information about it.
• Shen Yuan asked to accompany Fu Qian, and he agreed before asking her name; she reminded him that it was Shen Yuan.
• Shen Yuan drove Fu Qian to the museum in Bee Monkey City, where Kelly and the others had found him.
• Fu Qian ignored Shen Yuan’s doubts about the museum’s ordinary appearance and headed inside.

Fu Qian tested whether destroying the museum’s prized painting would expose the strange reality Kelly and Brook had suspected. The staff member transformed as beetles emerged from his face, while Shen Yuan saw bugs inside herself and cut into her own neck.

• Fu Qian and Shen Yuan searched the museum but found nothing unusual.
• Fu Qian asked the staff member to show them the museum’s most expensive exhibit.
• Fu Qian broke a glass case, took a sword, and slashed the painting to pieces.
• The staff member screamed as beetles crawled out of his face.
• Shen Yuan panicked at the bugs she saw inside herself, picked up the sword, and cut around her neck.

After Shen Yuan removed a parasitic worm and the museum shifted into a decayed realm, Fu Qian explored a hidden underground chamber and discovered invisible, slow-moving creatures that fed on blood. He left the chamber with one creature and began investigating whether it was connected to the Servant's Needle.

• Shen Yuan beheaded herself, pulled a dark red worm from her neck, and triggered a shift that transformed the museum into a dilapidated realm.
• Fu Qian searched the museum, found a newly appeared opening beneath the stairs, and gathered flashlights and batteries from the staff room.
• Fu Qian descended through a black-stone passage resembling the pit in the Corrupt Forest and reached an empty circular chamber.
• Fu Qian felt invisible living creatures wriggling on the chamber walls, returned upstairs, and found several attached to his clothes and hair.
• Fu Qian tested one creature with his blood and saw it shrink, then turned toward the opening after realizing something about how the creatures might spread.

Fu Qian escaped an attack by an invisible creature in the museum and explored the ruined surroundings, questioning whether the world was real or an illusion. He reached the damaged hospital from his earlier visit just as the infant’s crying stopped.

• Fu Qian inferred that an invisible creature had lifted the obstruction beneath the stairs, then heard it above him and dodged its attack.
• Fu Qian threw a dagger to mark the creature’s position, evaded its pounce, and fled the museum as it pursued him.
• Fu Qian shut the museum door behind him and found that the creature did not follow him outside.
• Fu Qian wondered how to return and whether the ruined world or his memories of breakfast were real.
• Fu Qian reached the damaged hospital, recognized it from his earlier visit, and noticed that the infant’s crying had stopped.